Monthly Archives: October 2008

A conservative babe with legs and blonde locks entered NBC’s wonderful world of “West Wing” on November 1, 2000 – not in time to ‘educate’ the public on the possibility of a strong traditional woman with feminine allure also being politically astute, and especially not to the advantage of Dubya’s expected [if contested] ascension a few days hence. Aaron Sorkin’s pen answered the first “WW” season flood of criticism by conservatives, giving a hint of what would emerge almost exactly eight years later. Thanks to noble transcriptionists of “WW” episodes available on line, some of the dialogue introducing Ainsley “Palin” Hayes is ready for the examination by those who might dare to remember. Continue reading →

BRAVO cable channel is adding its heft to OTO’s rise to dominance – or their hope for such achievement. Obama The One – OTO – long ago triggered a recently deceased conservative producer friend’s observation, “Sorkin’s getting his election, it’s going just like a script he’d write for ‘West Wing’!” Without any schedule in any printed medium I noticed for the afternoon timeslots, up popped President Jeb Bartlet in a back-to-back continually running re-issue of “West Wing” on BRAVO – and irony of ironies is it not, that it comes a week before election of OTO?

Or so they hope – in any case, the propaganda campaign that is the media tingly-leg assist to OTO is now amplified by dusting off old “WW” episodes in time to remind us: LIBERALS ARE STRONG if given power. Continue reading →

Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery began every day with a full-course English breakfast – a gut-filler that puts to shame the biggest feed at Denny’s Grand Slam buffet. Stories of his early morning feast, even on the eve of battle in the North Africa desert, led to the common expression, “Give me the Full Monty” at restaurants in Britain. Thus the equivalent to our American “full nine yards” – the full-treatment, all ya got, don’t hold back. No lesser meal would do for a Monty dinner guest.

In media stories, there’s ‘coverage” of the event(s), the basic, minimal treatment of a story, usually a single column headline and usually ‘below the fold’ or late in the newscast ‘budget’ presented to the audience… Continue reading →

Remember those American Express travelers cheque ads years ago? A crisis was presented for a family away from home, their wallet stolen, the crisis overwhelming their vacation future, when stepped up Karl Malden. Like a fedora-donning yoda, Malden in his trench-coat – a la his recent TV detective role in “Streets of San Francisco” [with young co-star, Michael Douglas] – offered the audience a wise question, as he stared into the camera, coming into the viewers’ living rooms with an intimacy only a beloved TV character can generate:

What would YOU do?

The solution? American Express travelers’ cheques, of course! The on-screen logo coda insisted, “Don’t leave home without it” – and the next commercial racked up for viewing. This piece of commercial thirty-second entertainment was a mainstay of primetime TV for years, subjecting Malden to many a skit parodying his ad by “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson in face putty to replicate Malden’s schnozz.

If the RNC were half as clever as it needs to be, some variation of this ad – or drawing on a more recent, salient version – would be generated in a commercial to ring true, asking Obama The One [OTO] the crucial question: Continue reading →

James Garner James Garner played zip-gun with my mother’s playgroup when he visited Shawnee, his periodic refuge from the juvenile authorities in his native Norman, Oklahoma. One of the great asses of Hollywood – for his ego as much as his leftwing views – jump-started his career playing TV’s famous “Maverick” before moving to film, and back to TV as a detective with only semi-macho inclinations.

One of his forays into movie near-stardom was as Charlie Madison, Lt. Commander of dog-robber midnight requisitioning for his Navy admiral in wartime London. Ramping up for D-Day led him into the sheets of British babe Emily Barham, played by Julie Andrews at the rise of her stardom, in “The Americanization of Emily” – written by that lefty American doubter, Paddy Chayefsky. Continue reading →

Two ‘facts’ emerged in this past week, one so good it had to be reported, and so useful to the left that the ‘kill him’ outburst at a Palin rally got maximum MSM coverage. Wee tiny problem: IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.

At least according to all authorities seeking prosecutorial insight – though the original reporter, and his ever-loyal publication, insists to this moment on the story’s validity.

The other ‘fact’ was a report on one website [as an ‘exclusive’ in caps] and cited by a second one, claiming a McCain-Palin campaign bus [without the candidates aboard] was blasted by paintballs and also had a window shot out by a .22 caliber bullet. Continue reading →

Mac is thinking a lot more like his fellow republicans these days – much as they did so often when he was the Maverick in Chief in the Senate conservative cloakroom.

Today’s McCain Cloakroom is bursting with such luminaries as Colin Powell, Christopher Buckley, Peggy Noonan, David Gergen, David Brooks, David Frum, Kathleen Parker, George Will, Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan. These are but a few of my least favorite beings of betrayal, who are all anxious to be liked by ‘Them’ on the left. They are abandoning the Conservative Cause in order to preserve their neutrality – or as Parker asserted to Chris Matthews, their ‘credibility’ – in the future. Continue reading →